TECHCRUNCH: Bitcoin’s most disrupting feature is its decentralized architecture. Indeed, bitcoin relies on a P2P network of computers to proceed money transfers. Each part of the network works to create new bitcoins (‘mining’), keep the network alive and validate transactions. All the transactions are registered in the blockchain that is used to validate a transaction using cryptography technology: it ensures that you can’t use a bitcoin you don’t own or you don’t use the same bitcoin more than once. This last action previously required a third party, but with bitcoin this is not the case anymore: the network replaces financial institutions and banks.

Then, money transfers are almost in real time as the network is responsible for validating transactions. Currently you need only 10 minutes to get your money transfer approved.

As there is no third party the transfer is almost free. Miners are the only ones to be rewarded to issue new bitcoins. They also collect fees to integrate a new transaction into the blockchain, then validate a transfer. Currently a typical fee costs 0.0001 bitcoin (BTC) per transaction. Read the full article

TECHCRUNCH: Sending money is hard. Sure we’ve got bitcoin for some and PayPal for some more and the horrible SWIFT and ACH systems for the rest of us schlubs but no one has quite cracked the money transfer trick. MasterCard Send is a good start.

Created as an effort to follow the Federal Reserve initiative aimed at speeding up the money transfer system, Send allows instant disbursements – imagine payments from insurance companies that land to your bank account nearly instantly – and P2P payments that let consumers “seamlessly send and receive funds from friends and family typically within seconds through providers including issuers, money transfer operators, merchants and more.” That’s finance talk for really fast remittances and money transfer. You can also send money from card to card, even to non-MasterCard cards. If you’ve ever tried to send money you’ll know that this is kind of a big deal. Read the full article